LITTLE ROCK—A year after Arkansas’ highest court ended the long-running Lake View school-funding case, the state’s attorney general warns that there’s no guarantee similar challenges won’t resurface.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said he reminds legislators that lawmakers returned to the Capitol in 2005 thinking that the legal battle over school funding was over. Later that year, the state returned to court to defend the adequacy of its schools.

“The message I take to the legislators is that the same thing could happen again,” McDaniel said in an interview this week.

Saturday marks one year since the Supreme Court ruled that the state had adequately funded its 450,000-student school district, ending the long-running Lake View lawsuit.

McDaniel, who served in the Legislature in 2005 and 2006 and defended the state’s education efforts before the Supreme Court last year, said next year’s legislative session will be a test of how the state has learned from the lessons of Lake View.

“What we do this session will set the precedent for how it’s done potentially for decades,” McDaniel said.

A key step in that process begins Monday, when a legislative panel completes its recommendations on what constitutes an adequate education in the state. The joint adequacy oversight committee of the House and Senate education committees is expected to release its recommendations on the per-student funding that each district should receive from the state.

Meeting what’s adequate may not be easy, though. Unlike last year, the state won’t be sitting on a nearly $1 billion surplus when the Legislature returns for its regular session in January.

The court ended the case shortly after legislators approved a $122 million increase in per-student funding for districts and set aside $456 million for a program to build and repair school facilities.

Setting aside half of that surplus for facilities was key to helping end the case, Gov. Mike Beebe said.

“That could have been catastrophic in terms of actual cost to the taxpayers, had we not had the surplus and had we not reserved the surplus for that purpose,” Beebe said. “The ability to set aside those one-time monies for school facilities enabled us to successfully argue that the state was and will and continues to comply with the court order.”

The state, however, may have some surplus again this year to help with its additional needs. State finance officials have told lawmakers that the money available for the General Improvement Fund in the 2009 session could grow to $164 million by July 1.

Beebe said that, if additional money is needed for school facilities beyond what’s already been budgeted, that would be the top priority for the fund.

“If it’s a top priority in our obligations across the board in state government then that as a component of it will be a top priority in the GIF,” he said.

David Matthews, the Rogers School District attorney who has criticized past state school-funding efforts, said he’ll be watching how legislators address education next year as a citizen but not as a lawyer targeting the state again.

“I do not have concerns they’re going to backslide,” Matthews said. “I think the governor and the legislative leaders and the attorney general realize that the number one priority under Arkansas’ constitution is the public education system. They must adequately fund it and they know that.”